Fighting Resistance Thursday

I've been listening to Amy Winehouse this week (I can't stop; her music is just toe-tapping good) and her Rehab song is my favorite:

They tried to make me go to rehab
I said no, no, no.

And I sing that in my head when Resistance attempts to sidetrack me from my writing.

I won't go, go, go.

Between her and Lily Allen, my fall 2007 playlist has so much energy! I love it. (Yes, I know Amy W. does really need to go to rehab. I hope she does. If Ray Charles can kick heroin, so can she.)

Another note from War of Art,

If you find yourself criticizing other people, you're probably doing it out of Resistance. When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.

Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. If they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement. Watch yourself. Of all the manifestations of Resistance, most only harm ourselves. Criticism and cruelty harm others as well.

Moving up toward 20k (just shy of 19k this morning) and hoping to continue the progress. Lots going on though, so I have to do other things than write.

Happy Thursday!

Writing Inspiration Wednesday

So, who's the aspiring novelist writing over 5,000 words in under 12 hours?

Yep, that's me. I turned off Gilmore Girls last night at 9 pm and wrote until 11:30 pm, went to bed, woke up again at 6:30, starting writing at 7:30 and started work at 8:45 am. It was like a huge breath of air that I just let go of and voila, out came story.

I am over 17k words and feeling great. Yes, the story is rough and I probably used one or two words like a zillion times, but I'm even able to watch for -ly descriptors now and am having fun avoiding them.

So happy writing Wednesday!

From Monica Wood's The Pocket Muse,

There is a special throne in heaven
for poets, who labor in obscurity.
The rest of us harbor an unexpressed hope for fame
and glory.
You might be tempted to write for a market.
You might be tempted to ride the crest of a trend.
That kind of writing is about as stable
and fulfilling as day trading.

Write what moves you.
Write what interests you.
Write what frightens you.
Write what thrills you.
Take a cue from the poets,
bless their underfunded little hearts.

Gadget Girl Tuesday

Back in the saddle again . . .

I really could get used to those nice long weekends, you know? I enjoyed my moratorium on work, hosted my brother (he and hubby golfed twice), watched stupid movies (Blades of Glory definitely qualifies), and ate great food. I need to go to the gym!

Today I'm back glorifying Firefox yet again. I know, everyone is probably saying enough already, but there's a swell add-on that I think I've used more than any other.

Session Manager is a nifty little deal that basically saves your browsing for you. Say you're online using Firefox (what else would you be using to browse, hm?) and you've got four (or seven) tabs open and the power goes out, or your computer decides to restart on its own (my computer is nearing death and does this), or you close your browser window and click okay to close all of your tabs (I have not done this in a while, but it has happened). You can use Session Manager to find it all again. Once your computer reboots (if it was shut down in the middle), Session Manager asks which browsing session you would like to pull up. If you manually shut down Firefox and want to remember where you were, before you shut it down, go up to Tools > Session Manager > Save Session and then shut down your computer. When you start Firefox back up, Session Manager will ask which session you want to continue browsing.

A very handy way to deal with Firefox. It has saved me a lot of time.

In other news: The novel race is under way. I'm rapidly heading to 25k (my goal for this week) and having a blast. It's a busy week for us this week because of jobs and a huge party we're having (25 of hubby's coworkers and their significant others!!!) on Friday, so if I blog every day, I will impress myself.

Happy Tuesday from rainy Seattle.

Friday Fiver

1. We're getting gorgeous weather in Seattle. Wednesday night we took the ferry to Bainbridge Island for dinner at the very much anticipated Four Swallows restaurant and it was delicious. The fourteen of us got an t-shaped table and the conversation never lagged once. It was a perfect day and was a great sight to see Bainbridge come into view and then on the return trip the city lights of Seattle dazzled us.

2. Great meeting, great time with fellow employees, and great to meet those who came in from London.

3. My bro comes in today for golf with hubby and to eat food, watch stupid television, and generally hang out. I can't wait.

4. Stayed at a swank hotel downtown. The first day I arrived I ran across the street to Seattle's Arundel Books and found an obscure Jacques Barzun book (1971) on writing for five dollars, which is a major score. In between meetings, dinners, talking, and sleeping, I managed to read a bit and I got inspired. More on that next week.

5. The novel challenge begins Monday and I'm ready to go! Will spend this weekend finishing up my notes on plot and once Monday's here, it is go time!

Happy weekend to all.

Gadget Girl Tuesday

I'm going to use the Gadget Girl heading until someone comes and takes it away by force. For those who are new, no, I don't claim this for myself specifically.

Anyway, do you use iTunes to listen to your music on your computer?

Check out the Mac OS X Hints article giving a"Perfect" setting featured on Merlin Mann's 43 Folders.

People have grabbed the screen shot and used the settings for their own iTunes. Interested?

Merlin also has the settings summarized with a link to the original article:

Open the equalizer, and from the pop-up menu, select “Make Preset.” Call it “Perfect,” because it is, and set the following levels, from left to right (skip the Preamp section):
db +3, +6, +9, +7, +6, +5, +7, +9, +11, +8 db

I'm off for a few days to a conference. Talk to you Friday.

Monday Book Rec

It's a classic, yes, and better if you can manage to attend one of his two-day seminars in LA or NYC, but Robert McKee's Story is one of those books that will inspire your writing even if you just read the first 75 pages.

A daunting book (just because the hardcover is thick), but a smooth read and one that enlightens you on each page. Ever wonder why some movies just don't do it for you? It's probably their plotting (archplot, miniplot, antiplot, or nonplot).

On the advice of a friend, I'm only reading this book before I plunge back into my novel work for the Novel Success Team Fall Writing Challenge that starts next week. I believe one can get too caught up in the how-to process and neglect the actual writing.

The sun is back out today in Seattle, the I-5 construction is complete, and teachers are back to school today readying their classrooms.

Happy Monday!

Friday Fiver

1. Hubby is negotiating for a great job! Which means we get to stay here! Very exciting and brings such relief.

2. What a whirlwind week! I've not been home all week as usual and I can tell. The job/freelance work/writing is fine, but the messy piles have grown. Getting ready for London, baby!

3. Met up with Jen, my fiction writing buddy, up at the Lodge in B-vue yesterday for a great chat. It always inspires me, plus I then found a great sale at Banana and got home in record time even with all the construction going on.

4. We're hosting all of hubby's team in two weeks (like 25 people!) and I'm so not ready. It's the big "goodbye" for this account and it's sad to see everyone headed out to their new jobs. Times are a-changing.

5. School has begun or will begin and that means I've got some studying to do too. This summer put me a bit behind with my study goals, but I intend to catch up quickly this fall.

Happy weekend! Happy birthday, Mom!

Talking 'Bout Resistance, Willis.

Well, have I had a week of it. This had nothing to do with the job or the freelance. The job actually was fantastic and has been loads of fun. The freelance is back down to a dull roar. The writing is actually going well too.

The Resistance has to do with being in the middle of friends fighting. Never mind that the friends are scattered all over the United States, but they had a get-together last week (that I had to miss) and major drama happened.

The timing of the inciting events just sucked, and the weekend was overshadowed by angry words and a whole lot of drama (on both sides) and I got drawn in to try and make peace by those who were not active participants, but who were significantly affected and stood watching on the sidelines.

It brought to mind some of my favorite parts of my book on resistance: The War of Art,

"Cruelty to others is a form of Resistance, as is the willing endurance of cruelty from others. . . . Creating soap operas in our lives is a symptom of Resistance. . . .

A victim act is a form of passive agression. It seeks to achieve gratification not by honest work or a contribution made out of one's experience or insight or love, but by the manipulation of others through silent (and not-so-silent) threat. The victim compels others to come to his rescue or to behave as he wishes by holding them hostage to the prospect of his further meltdown, or simply by threatening to make their lives so miserable that they do what he wants.

This will not be resolved anytime soon, and that's okay. A member of the group has left and perhaps others are preparing to go as well as a form of protest. That is fine. I believe everyone has a right to do as they please. It's a free country. I know they leave because certain behavior by the group just has gotten out of control. I've seen the behavior and the passive-agressive downright mean actions of a few people did not help the situation. But again, I believe everyone has a right to do as they please.

I just think we're a bit too developed as a society (not to mention friends for almost five years now) to be reverting to such low, insipid attacks. I am scunnered by it this morning (great scottish word, right?).

It just really smacks of Resistance to me. What in our lives are we avoiding by acting like this?

Remember, Steven Pressfield said it best in his prologue to War of Art:

You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture. Ever seen one his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I'll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.

Take down Resistance and just let it go.

Writing Inspiration Wednesday

Before I inspire everyone to drop everything they are doing right now in order to write, I wanted to point out a helpful comment I received yesterday from someone at Feedburner/Google.

Don wrote,

actually, feedburner is a publisher service not an rss reader. we help pubs optimize their rss feed, get analytics and if they want, insert ads. we deliver content to all the different places that consume rss feeds - websites, itunes, services like bloglines and my yahoo, etc.

so, it's not and either / or with bloglines.

See, I told you I'm not technically a Gadget Girl.

Thanks, Don, for your help in figuring this out. I got it now! I will check out the link you provided too!

In writing stuff, big news from a fellow writer buddy. Allison Winn Scotch just sold her second novel! She'll be writing it in our Novel Success Team Fall Challenge that runs from Labor Day to Halloween while I finish my YA novel draft. A whole bunch of FLX folks are joining us too. Should be great fun!

So, with that good news, this was good writing inspiration for me this week:

Routine Maintenance Schedule for the Writing Life

Once a week: Skip to the next part of whatever you're working on, no matter how stuck you feel.
Once a month: Write all day without talking to anybody.
Every three months: Send something out for publications, just to keep your hand in.
Every six months: Clean your workspace: Pitch obsolete files, lumpen drafts, rejection slips, leaky pens, old mail. Clear away the dross, and you'll be able to think more clearly.
Once a year: Take a chunk of time, whatever you can afford--three full days, minimum--and go someplace where your writing will not be disturbed except for eating and sleeping.

from Monica Wood's The Pocket Muse

Gadget Girl Tuesday

Okay, so someone said that I qualified because I keep up with all this stuff. I say that I'm not quite there yet.

I don't have an iPhone.

And today's Gadget Girl rec is just one of those foundational things to survive on the Internet. An RSS feed.

I use Bloglines, although Feedburner is a good one as well.

Anyway, this is a simple way to keep track of blogs and other updated content sites without having to troll through a blog roll on a daily basis. If you look up on to the right of the url that is this blog, you'll see an orange RSS feed button. If you sign up for either Bloglines or Feedburner, you can then use that orange feed button to subscribe to this blog.

Now, other people swear by del.icio.us to keep track of numerous sites. But del.icio.us is a bookmarklet tool, not an RSS feed. So if you don't want to subscribe to this blog, but want to tag it, use del.icio.us instead.

I use both on a daily basis. Sometimes I want to just tag a site into a category; other times, I want to keep up with the newest content.

I recommend both.

Once you get those working for you, you'll never run out of stuff to look at online, as if that was ever a problem to begin with.

Monday Book Rec

If you have not read any of the Hinges of History series written by historian and thinker, Thomas Cahill, you're missing out.

The first book, How The Irish Saved Civilization, stands on its own two feet and is worth reading more than once.

The second book,
The Gifts of the Jews, is an interesting look at Jewish culture and its singular impact on the West.

The third book,
Desire of the Everlasting Hills, talks about Jesus, both biblical and historical.

The fourth book,
Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter, is my current read.

The fifth book,
Mysteries of the Middle Ages, is my next read.

A great series, one worth exploring, written by a truly great writer and thinker.

Friday Fiver.

1. I'm on the laptop this morning because we are getting all our carpets cleaned. Luckily, our neighbor does this professionally and we get the culdesac discount. Yippee!

2. However, I'm tired because I spent most of last evening moving furniture from carpeted areas to hardwood areas. Our house is a mess, but it's always good to clean for fall. (I guess I'm not much of a spring cleaner then, hm.)

3. Novel Success Team Writing Challenge begins on Monday and goes until October 31. I plan to finish a draft, my friend Allison plans to finish, and I think other writers also have plans to give it a go. Plus, if we don't finish by then, we can use NanoWrimo to finish!

4. This has been a very exhausting week because of a multitude of things: work issues and stress, interviews galore for hubby (which is a great thing!), and lots of house cleaning chores completed (gutters, pressure washing of deck, driveway, sidewalks, and flagstone patios). We're having friends over for some fun tonight!

5. I will have to leave process behind in order to finish my draft in the Novel Success Team Writing Challenge. I may never learn process in this novel writing game, but the goal is to simply complete a draft right now, not become Janet Evanovich overnight.

Have a great weekend!

Thursday Resistance

And I'm back with another few good thoughts about Resistance (and we have lived it this week; one thing after another after another after another).

Resistance has no strength of its own. Every ounce of juice it possesses comes from us. We feed it with power by our fear of it. Master that fear and we conquer Resistance.

Or this:

When a writer begins to overcome her Resistance--in other words, when she actually starts to write--she may find that those close to her begin acting strangely. They may become moody or sullen, they may get sick; they may accuse the writer of "changing," of "not being the person she was." The closer these people are to the awakening writer, the more bizarrely they will act and the more emotion they will put behind their actions.

They are trying to sabotage her.

The reason is that they are struggling, consciously or unconsciously, against their own Resistance. The awakening writer's success becomes a reproach to them. If she can beat these demons, why can't they?

Often close friends (or colleagues, families, couples) will enter into tacit compacts whereby each individual pledges (unconsciously) to remain mired in the same slough in which she and all her cronies have become so comfortable. The highest treason a crab can commit is to make a leap for the rim of the bucket.

The awakening artist must be ruthless, not only with herself, but with others. Once you make your break, you can't turn around for your buddy who catches his trouser leg on the barbed wire. The best thing you can do for that friend (and he'd tell you this himself, if he really is your friend) is to get over the wall and keep motating. The best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration.

Writing Inspiration Wednesday

My writing prompt for this morning is:

In Making Shapely Fiction, the witty and wonderful Jerome Stern cautions against writing the "bathtub story." A bathtub story opens with the protagonist taking a bath (or occupying a similar confined space). During this bath, the protagonist thinks of, ruminates upon, wonders about, and analyzes the past, present, and future, but he never gets out of the bathtub.

At some point, somebody in your story has to do something. How about now?

(from Monica Wood's The Pocket Muse: Ideas & Inspirations for Writing)

Now go write!

Nifty Firefox Widget

If you haven't heard of Stumble Upon, you're in for a surprise.

It's a whole 'nother world on the Internet.

Stumble Upon is a widget you plug into Firefox that asks you to check off your interests from a list of choices (writing, books, design, shopping, fashion; some of my picks) and it nests a Stumble! button into your Firefox browser header. Whenever you're bored online (LOL), just press the Stumble! button and it sends you to a web site that guaranteed to be interesting.

A few of my Stumbles from today:

Fashion/Craft

Journalism

Web 2.0

Religion

Free Books

Writing

Head here: Mozilla to download Firefox and the Stumble Upon add-on.

You'll be glad you did.

Book Rec Monday

So, whoever said learning something new was hard knew what they were talking about (What you talking about, Willis?)

They say it takes 10,000 hours of study and practice to become a master. And I believe it. I've now spent a week in my new "fiction craft" school and have learned so much, but know I have a ton more to learn. I realized I needed to read more widely in my chosen genre (YA) and so headed to B&N with my birthday gift card to do some damage. But the YA aisle bewildered me. What was good? I knew a lot of the names, but not enough.

That's where Nancy Pearl, former Seattle librarian, saved the day. Her books,

Book Lust



More Book Lust



and Book Crush



are the most inspiring, interesting, intriguing, and helpful books for die-hard book buyers and readers today. I didn't have my copy of Book Crush with me, but quickly found a copy at B&N and used it to traverse my way through the YA aisle. It worked! I came home with a bag full of the type of YA I'm writing (the best of the best) and a list of books to find online that my local brick and mortar B&N didn't carry.

It you're frustrated by trips to the bookstore and want some great recs to read, check out Pearl's recommendations.

So this week, I'm studying craft and studying my chosen genre. I am definitely on the right track!

Keep moving forward!

Friday Fiver.

1. Interstate 5 northbound in Seattle will be reduced to one lane effective today through August 29. It is recommended that you avoid I-5 north before Tacoma as the traffic jam will be extreme (if drivers don't get off the freeway during this time). You've been duly warned.

2. We're waiting on a job opp in Boise, and looking at job opps in Oregon as well (Beaverton). Thus the house sell prep continues this weekend and next week (Todd has vacation for 10 days). We may not know anything for a few months yet. We're cutting it close!

3. Job is becoming much more interactive with the London colleagues (I love this!). The Department of Corrections (as we call ourselves in production) is a great group of people. I'm honored to be part of the team.

4. Writing is full steam ahead. Lots of thinking and writing work done this week and more to go. Working on a creating a writing life, which means putting up strict boundaries around my writing and what I'm interested in.

5. Thinking about our next house: do we want town or country? Must think more on that.

Resistance Again

Resistance has reared its ugly head.

Today I name "Anti-Resistance" Thursday. It will be a weekly item.
So even if you find this blog only once a week, try to get here on Thursday, okay?
From War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Resistance Is Infallible

Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, Resistance will unfailingly point to true North--meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing.
We can use this. We can use it as a compass. We can navigate by Resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or action we must follow before all others.
Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.

Keep moving forward. Face your resistance head on.

Lower Your Threshold

I'm very tough on myself. I have extremely high expectations of what I can accomplish in a week's time, even in a day's time. Last night, I realized that I need to lower my threshold and give myself some breathing time. When I write out a task list for my writing or studying, I need to take it down a notch, usually by a third, or sometimes a half. There is just no excuse for me to try and keep up with the fastest producers in literature. Sure Anthony Trollope could write a legible 250 words in 15 minutes, but that may not work for me right now.

I'm learning to slow down and focus on the scene at hand in my novel. To really discover the one event in each scene that gives the writing a pulse, a rhythm, that basically makes it come to life.

I realized this week that my writing is a lot of events tumbling around together, but there is no coherent event that gives it a pulse.

Thus, I've got to slow it down, get the pulse, and move on from there.

Must get to the day job. Lots going on this week.

Keep moving forward.

The Writing Life

All I did was glance out the window yesterday afternoon and saw two people talking on the sidewalk. It prompted an entire short story!

That's the kind of inspiration Sandra Scofield's nifty little tome, The Scene Book, has provided to me. I'm realizing that the building blocks of good writing are one part inspiration, two parts craft. After receiving such helpful feedback from my critique group, I have decided my craft is sorely lacking. Scofield pushes craft in her book, and it's not easy by any means. However, it is inspiring and I am determined to push myself to become better.

And who knows, some short stories may just be submitted to publishers first!

Keeping moving forward.